• spookex@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I mean, in the end an animal is an animal. I have had cats and dogs and don’t really like to see them hurt because (in the West) there is no purpose for their existence besides being pets.

    Cows and livestock, on the other hand, only exist for food and we keep breeding them for that.

    At the same time, is don’t really see a problem with the cultures that eat cats and dogs, in the end, it’s all just animals and it doesn’t matter if I think that some of them look cuter than others

    • Jack@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Many animals are smarter than severely mentally-disabled humans, yet we don’t torture and eat severely mentally-disabled humans. So it’s not about intelligence. It’s obviously also not about being able to feel pain, because animals can feel pain.

      Do you agree with “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you”?

      If yes, would you be okay with genetically modified people who are much smarter and crueler than you, treating you like factory farmers and fishermen treat animals? 1-3 trillion fish are enslaved in torturous factory-farm conditions every year, and together with fishermen torture about 2-6 trillion fish to death annually, usually by slow asphyxiation. Hundreds of billions of land-animals (mostly chickens) are enslaved in torturous conditions every year and slaughtered. About 1% of chickens are boiled alive because it would cost more money to make sure the machines that kill them don’t miss that 1%. Dairy cows are repeatedly put on rape racks to be artificially inseminated, because they only give milk after delivering a calf. The calves are removed from their mothers, because the farmers don’t want the calves to drink the milk. Would you like to be kept your entire life in torturous conditions? Be tortured to death? You and/or your female family repeatedly artificially inseminated and made to give birth, then have the babies taken away so you and/or your female family’s milk can be harvested, eventually killed for hamburger when not yielding enough milk to make a profit?

        • Jack@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          The reason many people say it’s OK to be complicit in factory farming animals, but not humans, is because humans are smarter: “they’re just animals”. Pointing out that factory farmed animals are smarter than severely mentally-disabled humans, shows it’s clearly not about intelligence. Speciesism is therefor similar to racism and sexism.

          What’s important is whether they can feel pain or not, not intelligence.

          Pointing out the lie isn’t gross. What is gross is torturing 3-6 trillion fish to death every year, and enslaving 1-3 trillion animals in torturous conditions every year.

          Dominion, Land of hope and glory, Earthlings

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            You’re getting a lot of pushback and I can see why, but I’ve actually been coming to similar conclusions in a different way. It’s essentially species narcissism, just like we have racial narcissism, gender narcissism, physical narcissism, etc.

            But we exist within this planet and evolved with it as well. Factory farming, monoculture, and industrial farm practices are harmful for the planet and us and is pretty bad for many reasons. Being a heterotroph is not something we have control over, however. We consume other species, plant and animal and microbes alike, to get nutrients as do many other species. Even some autotrophs will eat other species.

            So it’s important to not continue to engage species narcissism and thus remove ourselves as participants living with this world.

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            comparing other races to animals is what racists do. comparing women to animals is what misogynists do. their fight for their own rights isn’t premised on their ability to feel pain, but the fact that they, too, are fully human.

            • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              “They deserve rights because they are human”, ah, okay. So being human is just a magical qualifier that determines whether or not you are entitled to the ability to live unimpeded. Every other species on the planet exists to serve the whims of humanity, for being human is special.

        • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          It would be gross if the comparison sought to belittle the mentally disabled, but the comparison is to point out the cruelty and inhumanity. It’s gross that you think it’s okay to cause pain and suffering because animals are “lesser” in your worldview.

            • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Oh? If their existence isn’t lesser than humanity, then what issue do you take in comparing the value of their existence? 🤔 oh right, it’s not a strawman, you just aren’t smart enough to compete in an actual argument. Go back to school, champ.

                • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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                  12 hours ago

                  At what point did anyone say humans and cows were the same? Or dogs and cows? You just started saying that because you don’t have any actual rebuttal.

                  We compare things that are different all the time- in fact, that’s how the concept of comparison works. You can’t really compare two identical things because there is nothing to compare. They are identical.

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            in torture, the point is to cause pain. the pain incurred by animals in agriculture is incidental. it’s not the point of the practice. if there were some other options that were just as cost effective or cheaper, farmers would use them.

            • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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              12 hours ago

              Actually, torture is a method by which people advance their goals. For example, you might torture someone to extract information. The point of the practice is to extract information, not necessarily cause pain. It just so happens that torture was the method they deemed most effective.

              Have anything intelligent to say or are you just going to keep saying stupid shit?